TerraMaster NAS and DAs units, any good?

GoogalyMoogaly

GoogalyMoogaly

GoogalyMoogaly

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I was just wondering if anyone here had used any of the TerraMaster NAS and/or DAS units?
I'm looking at getting a DAS to put some old HDDs in and considering the TerraMaster D5-300 and the Qnap TR-004, but I hear reports that the Qnap has bad access speeds.

I've currently got a Qnap TS-112 and TS212 but thinking at some point I might upgrade that to a 4-bay NAS and have been considering the TerraMaster F4-423, but not sure if I should stick to what I know or maybe try Synology?

I believe TerraMaster is a Chinese brand, after the fuss about Huawei a while back, do people have an issue with Chinese brands these days? I've not really considered it until now.
 
Oh yeah, the F4-424 does look nice, if that's still available when I get around to changing my NAS.

I think the DAS will be my first purchase though, any experience with the D5-300 or TR-004? I'm tempted by the D5-300 just because it'd be nice to go all TerraMaster.
 
Now starting to think, if they've refreshed the F4-423 with the F4-424 I wonder if they'll soon refresh the D5-300 with something similar.
I do prefer the black styling of the F4-424 over the F4-423 and it looks to have a smaller footprint too.
 
wonko said:
Hi, I've got a terramaster D5-300C (USB3) here which I use for backups. I use it in JBOD mode with Drivepool (under windows) to make a 30 ish TB drive. It's not the quietest or quickest thing but it has worked reliably and the noise hasn't really bothered me as it's only powered up intermittently. I've not tried the raid mode, and would be nervous of data loss tbh.
Depending on the size/value of the disks you're intending to put in it, it might make more sense to just buy a new 16Tb + disk instead.
Hope that helps a bit.
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Thanks for that.
My reasoning is partly that I've got some old HDDs that I've just got sitting around, so thought this could make use of them. Also in the future plan to upgrade my NAS so it may be useful when it comes to doing that.
I'm planning on connecting it via my NAS to use it as more NAS storage. Currently undecided how to set the disks up. RAID5 would be nice but due to uneven disk size I'd lose a fair amount of space.
 
IanAG said:
Afraid I couldn't say, mine didn't get booted with the standard OS beyond testing it worked.

One comment I will make is that the regular 424 which comes with 8GB does not appear to be easily upgradeable despite the advertisting. Neither a 16GB or 32GB SODIMM I have works. It looks like they have history for applying BIOS restrictions to their own overpriced memory. Will be emailing support and contemplating sending it back if there is a negative response.
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I noticed on the *elsewhere* page it does say the memory for the 424 is non-upgradeable (unlike the 424 pro and the 423 (oddly)).
Is that generally an issue though? I'd only be using it as a media server and shared HDD space.

EDIT: Forgot I need to avoid mentioning competitors (even though Overclockers don't sell the F4-424), so took the name out.
 
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Hi, sorry for resurrecting this thread!

I see TerraMaster have now released a F4-212 NAS that seems like a less powerful F4-424. What do people think of this NAS? Does anyone have one?

I have some concerns over the network speed with it only being a 1Gbps port (but to be fair that's what my network is for now). Also worried that the CPU and 3GB RAM could be an issue for some thing and may reduce how long it receives OS updates, especially given peoples concerns over the F4-424 only having 8GB RAM. Is this a realistic concern?

I mostly expect to use it as plain old network storage and a DLNA media server, but if it supports Docker containers that might be of interest too. Would the F4-212 be enough for my needs?
 
Demon said:
Running Unraid, it took a lot of dockers before I tipped over 8GB, so 8GB is 'enough' for a reasonable use case of running apps, but 3GB definitely sounds too little unless just using it as a basic NAS IME.




I have a D6-320 DAS case turn up before Xmas, which was more of an experiment to potentially go for a low power NAS using that and a smally i5 alderlake NUC style box..

It works remarkably well, all HDDs showed up, no issues with a week long stability test and SMART/Spindown all worked as expected (using Unraid) and over a USB 3.2G2 link, I had no issues with performance with spinning disks, easily doing parity writes @ 160MB/Sec sustained..
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Thanks. I realised I made a typo, it's actually only 2GB RAM in the F4-212. However so far the only Docker container I'm considering is a pihole container. Obviously once I've got it I might find others, and that's the worry really. Otherwise I'd imagine my use case is pretty basic.

I'm just thinking I could get the F4-212 and D4-320 (DAS) for about the same price as the F4-424 (which I'm also struggling to find stock of).
 
Demon said:
The F4-212 is not just 2GB, it's an arm based quad core @ 1.7ghz

How about the F2-424 (Intel N95 quad core @ 3.4Ghz / 8GB RAM) its £60 more than the F4-212 but it seems a big step up in CPU/RAM and only sacrificing 2 drives overall, assuming you stick with the D4-320.

The F2-424 will let you hardware transcoding (Plex) and would allow other OS' such as Unraid in the future (that is paid, but very much well worth it).
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Yeah the CPU did worry me too. I think the issue is I don't know what I need. Will I need transcoding or will I want to run Unraid? I just don't know.
Part of me thinks to just get the cheaper one (F4-212) and see how it goes, but the other part of me keeps thinking of the old saying "buy cheap, buy twice".
 
Demon said:
Yeah, indeed.. if you just want a file server running lightweight things like pi-hole then anything will do.. If you then find more uses for the NAS, then it becomes and issue..

Why not just build a NAS from cheap second hand components? My NAS is just my old PC bits in a new case with a cheap LSI controller (miniSAS to 8 SATA) for loads of HDDs..

Cases like the Fractal Design 7 with support for 14HDDs (I think you need to buy extra cages to get all those in) and for more SATA ports you can get HBA cards (the LSI-9207-8i preflashed in IT mode which support TrueNAS/Unraid etc) which gives you 8 SATA ports from one PCIE 3.0 slot and they are cheap.

I've bought loads of second hand stuff of these forums, I'm running an old Ryzen 3600 + B-450F Asus motherboard and in total the server that can hold around 12 HDDs + 6 SSDs was £300

You could start off small, you don't need an HBA card until you exceed the SATA ports on the motherboard, and you don't need a huge case, anything that holds a few HDDs is fine, then upgrade when you need it, and upgrade costs are cheap.
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Yeah, an option I suppose.
But getting small form factor stuff is expensive and also limits HDD space. If you don't go SFF then it's going to be considerably bigger than a F4-212 and D4-320 combined. Plus what if it turns out all I want is a file/media server?
I don't know, I'm rubbish at making decisions. Currently running a QNAP TS-112, so anything will be better than that!
 
Snapshot said:
Personally I don't like ARM-based NASs. The CPUs all seem feeble compared with Intel-based models and the small, non-expandable RAM seems insufficient. The N95 CPU in the F4-424 is class-leading, well ahead of the N5105 in the Asustor AS5404T which I consider its nearest competitor. What I can't find for the F4-424 (apart from stock!) is whether the M.2 slots can be used for data or only cache. This is clear for the AS5404T - any of the four slots can be used for data or cache.
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Website seems to suggest only as cache.

The F4-424 is in stock again now so I'm very tempted to go for it.
I'm just worried that it might be overkill for my needs and I'm wasting ~£180. But I don't want to regret it later when it's too slow or can't do something...
 
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